


last words I heard 'em say

by ashintuku



Series: I've been all around this world [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ace Spectrum, Identity Issues, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 06:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5732233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashintuku/pseuds/ashintuku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They left the tarmac, Finn holding her hand tightly and Poe with his arm around her shoulders loosely, and she felt warm and loved and surrounded in the best of ways; as if the Force had been made into people and the people were ones she adored above everything else. Skywalker told her that that was a good thing, sometimes; that the old Jedi Order had it wrong in a lot of ways. The old Jedi Order had been afraid of love and attachments and passion and ideals, because they looked at the sith and saw their passions as their downfalls. </p><p>Skywalker argued that it was what their passions were about that were their downfall, and Rey thought she understood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	last words I heard 'em say

Chewie had rushed to her shelter, grumbling and growling about something being wrong with the _Falcon_ , and Rey was on her feet and dashing down to the old ship as fast as her legs could carry her, a wookie right behind her. 

She spent the night and a good portion of the next day elbow-deep in live-wires and sparking circuitry, calling out for tools and clambering deeper and deeper into the belly of the _Falcon_ with each new dead end to the problem. Chewie went and tried to figure out the problem in other areas only he would think to look at, and R2-D2 beeped and whirred and plugged itself into the system to see if it could figure out what was ailing its old friend.

Skywalker came in as she was dousing a small fire with a cloth, her hair in disarray and her cheeks smudged with soot and oil. 

"She's still a finicky old bird, then," he commented mildly, and Rey looked over to see him looking around the ship with fond, reminiscent eyes. Made her remember that he had spent a large part of his youth aboard the _Falcon_ , chasing his destiny along with Han Solo and Princess Leia and the Rebel Alliance. He had told her stories about each room that only he knew about; how he had caught Han mooning over Leia, masking it as something else when Luke had asked what was wrong in the common room; about the time C-3P0 and Leia had an argument about the proper time for mannerly conduct and the proper time for a punch to the face in the kitchens. He had pointed to the chair that Old Ben had sat on in the rec room, and she realized he meant the legendary Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, his first tutor; he told her about the remote, and learning about the Force, quieting his mind enough that he could block the hits from the remotes shocking laser bullets. 

Now he stood there, hands folded into his sleeves, and she rubbed at her cheek self-consciously when he turned to her and quirked a quick, tired smile. 

"I never had the head to repair this ship - give me an X-wing, I was fine. Even an airspeeder is more my area of expertise. Corellian freighters, though? That was always Han's place." He paused, and sighed, and Rey pulled herself out of the smoky remains of the gutted interior. She couldn't work on it until it was cool enough to touch, anyway. 

"Tell me about Han?" 

"Exactly the same, from what you've told me, if not a little bit more faithful." Skywalker smiled again, and he was Luke for a moment, and she stared at him for long enough to see him shift from Luke to Skywalker once more. "Always getting into trouble, always accruing debt. He asked Leia to marry him _six times_ , would you believe it?" 

Rey laughed, shaking her head, and Skywalker smiled a little. He sat down across from Rey, the two of them on the ground, and somehow in the smoking interior of the _Falcon_ , Chewie ripping apart wires and cables and the like on the roof of the freighter, Skywalker softened and Rey saw the good man that had created a legend. 

"When they finally did get married, he was late, and she never let him forget it, either." 

"No!" 

" _'Look, Leia, I'm sorry, okay, but I heard about this shipment, and I had to go check it out!'_ and Leia just shook her head and dragged him down the aisle. It's my favourite memory. It was the happiest I had ever seen either of them." He paused, tugging at one of his sleeves; the steel of his hand glinting in the light. Rey's smile disappeared slowly, and Skywalker folded back into himself. "...Leia's asked for us to come back. We leave in three days - do you think the _Falcon_ will be ready by then?" 

Rey stared at him for a long moment and wished that he could just smile and be at peace for once, because his life was one fire-smoking home after the other; another family member burned and thrown away, uncles and aunts and fathers and brothers all. 

"I'll make sure of it." 

~+~

They were settled into the new base, the planet a quiet, unknown place with a name no one could remember and an old power plant that they repurposed for their needs. Their surroundings were mostly jungles, with streams and hot springs and a mountain range on the horizon that Poe liked to stare at and trace with his fingers from the rooftops. It had taken a couple of months, but it was finally home.

He had taken to looking up at the stars, learning the new constellations so that he always knew where home was. Finn sometimes joined him, leaning on his shoulder and sleeping as quietly as he could before nightmares crept in and dug fingers into his brain. Poe had asked about his nightmares, once; asked what made him jolt and sit up and stare, panting, at the dark wall across from him for an hour before he rolled out and started going through morning exercises. Finn had tried to explain - he had, he was so open like that, wanted to make sure Poe knew everything because Finn thought it was important they knew _everything_ \- but it had been a broken explanation. 

'Reconditioning' and 'Phasma' and 'Slip' had all been mentioned, over and over, and Poe had carded his fingers over Finn's head, through his hair, and let the words float away. 

But tonight he was alone, outside of BB-8, and as he stared up at the stars he watched as they slowly faded away to pre-dawn light. A manual sat by his side, opened to a page breaking down the engine of an X-wing T-70 model, and below on the tarmac he heard others from his squadron milling around, getting ready for the new recruits. 

General Leia had told him that they were going to start bringing in recruits to start training that day; that they needed to replenish their fighter forces, because half their fighters were wiped out at Starkiller, the rest gone with the Hosnian System, and Poe still remembered Ello and the other dozens of fighters who had died trying to take down the system-killer. He remembered the mass funeral they had had on D'Qar, while Finn laid in a coma and Rey had curled herself into the chair beside him, crying for Solo and for Finn and for an innocence that had died in her the moment she stepped foot off the harsh sands of Jakku. 

The burning pyre had almost reminded him of the fires in that Jakku village, watching as the man in the mask cut Lor San Tekka nearly in half for the crime of telling him the truth.

BB-8 _bwoopboopwhuu_ ed at him, and he shook himself out of his thoughts and out of fire and flickering 'sabres, grinning over at the little droid and reaching out to pat its head. He tutted when he saw the crooked antenna, reaching out to fix it up and grumbling to himself. 

"What do you even do, BB, to make this bend every other day? Are you having adventures without me?" It whistled and whirred, spinning in a small, tight circle, and Poe grinned. "Well, keep safe, would ya? Can't be losing my favourite copilot. Speaking of - we should probably head down to the tarmac, the new faces will be stumbling in any minute and it just wouldn't do for Black Leader to not be down there, would it?" 

BB-8 whirred agreeably, and the two of them got up and made their way down to the ground in companionable silence. 

~+~

Finn developed a routine for himself, because routines were familiar and he needed something familiar while he learned to be an individual. 

Every morning he would wake up and begin his exercises. Mostly ones to strengthen his core, but also to strengthen his back and arms and legs; exercises he had practiced since he was old enough to follow orders. When Poe woke up a couple of hours later, they would go to breakfast, and then Poe would go to the tarmac and Finn would go to the training area and walk soldiers through fighting 'troopers; tell them what to look for in each uniform to tell how serious a situation was. Were there flametroopers and riot 'troopers? It was a control situation; were there riot 'troopers and heavy artillery? It was a takeover. Was there a high-ranking officer amongst them? It was a total takeover; no survivors, everyone rounded up and slaughtered; it was an example. 

He would then meet Poe for lunch, and go to the command centre to talk to General Leia Organa and give her what intel he could; what he knew about the bases and their locations, what he knew about training, what locations would be best to take down. 

It was strange, he thought, looking through maps and tapping star systems to find planets and planets of bases; it was strange that he had wanted to get out of the Order and run away, and instead he had gotten out so he could tear it apart piece by uniformed piece. 

He would go for dinner, then, run around the base with Poe, chat with BB-8 in an attempt to learn binary for an hour, and then, if it was the end of the week, he and BB-8 would go into his and Poe's room and holo Rey. 

Finn loved it when he got to see Rey; got to see her smiling at him, tinged holo blue and looking tired but _happy_. Like she was doing something wonderful, and he only wished he could be with her so that he could watch her be wonderful. Not that he wanted to leave Poe; Finn loved Poe, Poe was amazing. Poe introduced him to terrible vids and to interesting books and complained that half his shirts looked better on Finn than himself. Poe curled around him and tucked Finn's head under his chin, against his throat; declaring quietly that he trusted Finn where he was most vulnerable, all the while humming songs, the vibrations thrumming against Finn's cheek and drawing him into sleep. 

But Finn missed Rey; missed her Jakku-warmed skin, and her soft hair, and her bright eyes and brighter smile. Missed how she tucked her chin on his shoulder and pointed out different plants because she had never seen so many _plants_ before - not ever, not on Jakku, everything was a wastescape and nothing ever grew except desperation and hunger pains. He missed feeling like someone understood not understanding everything; missed having someone be amazed at simple things with, like the taste of new food or picking a shirt just because he _liked_ it or listening to music and finding he really, really enjoyed it. 

But now Rey was in another part of the galaxy and Finn had to find some way to ignore that ache and still go on as before, and Poe helped, he did, but so did keeping busy. 

So he tried his best to keep busy. 

~+~

Three days and eight fires and one small explosion after Rey made a promise to Skywalker she intended to keep, the _Falcon_ was running as smoothly as it could and Chewie told her they were ready whenever Skywalker was. 

So she packed up her belongings, remembering the way Finn had folded her clothes and Poe had stuffed her valuables into socks, and she did her best to mimic them and came out with something a little of both and all her own. Skywalker came onto the ship just as she shoved her bags and satchel into a compartment, and he went to the cockpit and she followed after him. He sat down in the seat behind Chewie's, and she sat in Han's seat and felt his expectations rest heavily on her shoulders. And with a glance at mentor and friend and droid, she flipped the switch and pushed the thrust and they were lifting off and back into the galaxy. 

And it was as easy as breathing. 

~+~

He was in the middle of guiding one of his students through a fly pattern when BB-8 squealed excitedly and suddenly Rey's flickering holo was floating beside his cockpit and grinning at him. 

"Rey!" he cried out, and the rest of the squadron all made a noise in surprise, nearly overpowering his hearing; he tuned them out, told his student to keep to their route, and grinned at the image of the desert girl. "I'm kinda in the middle of something!" 

"I just wanted to let you know that we'll be landing in a couple of hours - perhaps you could tell General Organa? I don't want to surprise her too badly, especially as you all found a new base and everything. I had to get the coordinates from C-3P0, he's impossible!" 

"Ah, he's alright - a bit persnickety. I think Statura once called him a 'fuddyduddy' which is, quite honestly, the best phrase in the world." 

Rey giggled, shaking her head; turning to someone on her right and nodding before looking back at him. "Well, whenever you have a moment, please tell them. And Finn, too! I don't want to miss him. ... Or you." 

"I'll tell the General, Rey - and don't worry," here, he grinned, and the whooping and ribbing from the comms was louder, now, as loud as ever, and he cheerfully ignored them, "we'd never miss your grand arrival for anything. See you soon, love." 

"See you soon, Poe!" She flickered out, and BB-8 wriggled as best as it could, and Poe finally paid attention to the rest of the squad. 

"Alright, enough already! Let's finish this pattern, I gotta girl to meet within a few hours' time!" 

"I thought you and that Finn guy were together?" Poe laughed, grinning and checking on his student's flying to make sure they hadn't wavered during the unexpected excitement. 

"We are!" 

~+~

He was talking about what a 'trooper's mask filters cleared out and what they didn't to a room full of people when Poe opened the doors with a flourish, walked up to him, and leaned in to tell him that the _Falcon_ and Rey were about to land in thirty minutes. 

He dismissed his class and followed after Poe without even wondering if he was allowed; he just did it, because he could, because he was a person, and because Rey was coming back and he wanted to be there. He had to be there. Nobody made any comment, or argued against his decision; he mostly saw grins and cheerful waves as he followed the Resistance's ace pilot out of the room and back towards the tarmac. 

Poe smelt of engine fuel and leather and sweat, his flight suit unzipped to his waist and hanging off his hips like a tagalong, the arms tied around him. His dark hair curled with sweat on his forehead, and Finn reached out and pushed the damp curls away, and Poe looked over at him and grinned; grinned because Finn was allowed to touch him and fix his hair and grinned because he was glad Finn _knew_ that. 

They held hands the entire way to the tarmac, and waited on the sidelines as people ran out onto the landing strip and got ready to guide the _Falcon_ into landing. 

He leaned against the pilot's shoulder and watched, wide-eyed, as the familiar hunk-of-junk freighter pulled out of the sky and down towards them in a smooth arc; knew that Rey was piloting, because Rey was just as good as Poe, equal to Poe, and he thought for a moment that he'd like to see them fly together and show the others how it was done. 

But then the landing gears were lowering, and the _Falcon_ was turning in place, and suddenly the ramp was lowering down. 

Chewbacca came ambling out, tall and hairy as ever, rumbling out something Finn couldn't understand because the Order had decided that their soldiers only needed to know Basic, because if they knew anything else rebellion could take seed in their minds. He grinned and waved when the wookie looked over at him, and Finn laughed when Chewbacca was suddenly _there_ and _hugging_ him and _wow_ wookies gave amazing and painful hugs. 

Once released from his furry, affectionate prison, Finn looked over to see Rey walking over to them with her bright smile and bright eyes, her hair wound up in a tight, coiled braid along the back of her head; and he broke away from Poe, because Poe gave him a name but Rey gave him meaning and she had been there when Poe couldn't be. 

He wrapped her up in a hug as soon as she was close enough, burying his face in her shoulder and breathing in the scent of sea salt and dust and oil and sand, and it felt like coming home. 

~+~

Skywalker gave her the rest of the day off to get accommodated and to spend some time with her pilot and her Finn, and Rey grinned at him instead of thanking him because he appreciated that more than words. Words made a world of difference, he told her once, they really did; but they were for big, important things. Actions were more direct, and told you more, and she couldn't help but agree with him. 

Unkar Plutt always spoke of looking after her since she was small, but he had only ever given her rations for her labour and left her to figure everything else out by herself - and he still had the gall to call it the same damn thing. 

They left the tarmac, Finn holding her hand tightly and Poe with his arm around her shoulders loosely, and she felt warm and loved and surrounded in the best of ways; as if the Force had been made into people and the people were ones she adored above everything else. Skywalker told her that that was a good thing, sometimes; that the old Jedi Order had it wrong in a lot of ways. The old Jedi Order had been afraid of love and attachments and passion and ideals, because they looked at the sith and saw their passions as their downfalls. 

Skywalker argued that it was what their passions were _about_ that were their downfall, and Rey thought she understood. 

The black, smoky thing that was Kylo Ren roiled in anger and hatred and loss, and he vented it out in a way he had never been able to as a child because he had been taught peace and tranquility and political calm with a charming smile. He had been taught to shrug things off like sand off a bantha's back; taught to smile and disarm because sometimes a blaster wasn't going to get you out of a situation. 

And then the Force found him, and curled around him tight, and his uncle tried to help him but Ben Solo had learned to take care of himself for so long that he shrugged him away and found rage and despair in equal measure and lost himself. 

Finn squeezed her hand, then, and she was pulled out of her thoughts of men in masks and lost boys lit in dying red, and she turned to see him grinning at her and realized he had asked her something. 

"I'm so sorry, Finn, what was that?" 

Finn laughed, and Poe chuckled on her other side, and the man with the smile of a sun pulled her closer to a door. 

"It's our room!" 

_Our room_ , Rey thought, stepping through the doors with Finn and looking around with wide-eyed wonder. Not just her room. Not just Finn and Poe's room. _Their room_. 

When the Force found Ben Solo, it killed him and left behind Kylo Ren, strangled and drowning in hoods and apparatus. 

When it found Rey, it brought her Finn, and it brought her Poe, and it taught her how to stop waiting and finally _breathe_. 

~+~

Poe watched Finn leave to take Rey on a grand tour of the new base, staying behind because he knew that the younger man was excited to show her around and also because he knew Finn had missed her ever since she had left. 

Poe knew that Rey completed something with Finn; made something in him so much more alive. He knew it was probably because she had never seen him in the 'trooper gear; had never seen him with a blaster and a helmet and the stiff stance of a man bred for war. Poe had given Finn a name - an identity, something to call himself outside of a series of _kriffing numbers_ \- but Poe had met FN-2187 _first_ and the two of them knew that. 

It didn't change anything. Poe would still do everything in his power for Finn and Finn would always reach out to him and tell him he saved his life. But it put a slant on things. It made their interactions more... well, _more_. More weighty, more strange and wonderful. People always eyed them because Finn was a 'trooper and Poe had been captured by the First Order and their meet-cute story was 'Finn broke Poe out of a high-security prison because he was a prison guard who wanted to get parsecs away from it all'. 

Not that Rey and Finn's first meeting was any better, really: 'Rey chased Finn down because a BB unit called him a thief and before they could get the apologies out an air raid was firing rockets down on them like incompetent _assholes_ '. Out of the three of them, Rey and Poe had met in the calmest situation, and it was so mundane most people would have thought they were making it up. 

He blinked as Jessika 'Testor' Pava sat across from him in the mess, tray in front of her and dark brows raised high to her hairline; black hair pulled into a braid that hung down her shoulder like knotted vines. He idly thought to tell her to brush it if she was going to insist on keeping it so long. 

"Give it to me straight, Commander - the three of you?" 

"Together, yeah." 

"Age difference--?" 

"Inconsequential. But we'll talk to make you feel better." She tossed a cube of... well, he thought it was a vegetable, it was a little bit purple, at him and he ducked. 

"Human interaction?" 

"Finn's a touch-deprived Stormtrooper runaway and Rey's a touch-starved desert scavenger. What do you think, Testor?" 

"I think you should properly introduce the two of 'em to at least Wexley and me. We're good people. We won't tease you in front of them." 

"Big of you." 

"I thought so." 

Poe laughed, and it felt good to laugh, because lately he'd been forgetting what it was like and all he knew was physical exhaustion. 

"We'll get there, Testor. Now update me on our recruits - are any of them improving, or are we going to have to drag them out of their beds at ass-o'clock and chase them around the grounds?" 

"That is so tempting, Commander, can't we do that anyway?" 

"Status report, Testor, come on!" 

~+~

The world felt like it was tilted correctly when he held Rey's hand in his. 

When she was gone, everything went on a slant; like the Stardestroyer he was stationed in was suddenly turning, and artificial gravity was off, and the engineers weren't quick enough to fix it before people noticed. Engineers got decommissioned for less than that; any 'trooper got decommissioned for less than that. 

Finn shook his head, focused back on Rey's hand, and smiled widely to himself. 

Finn knew that he probably depended on Poe and Rey a little bit too much; that individuals did not base so much of their personality on other people. Individuals did not mourn men they had only met or keep their jacket because it was _theirs_ and they had to live on somehow. Individuals didn't follow after women who barely knew them and barely trusted them into the gates of the hell they had escaped from. 

Finn didn't know much about individuals, but he did think he knew that they didn't build themselves on and around people. But he couldn't help it. 

Finn had never been a Finn before. He had been a number; -2187 of block FN. The others of his block had been his age, and they had built themselves as a unit. They were FNs. They would stick together; they would create a code of their own, to separate them from the FMs and the FOs. They would be the closest thing to a family any of them had. 

The FN-1s were closer to each other than to the FN-2s because it was obvious, and the FN-21s were usually closer to each other than they were to the FN-20s. 

But FN-2187 had always been different. Always alone. He had bonded with FN-2003 and -2000, and it was only chance and luck that -2199 was like him and a little bit different. 

Not so different as to never earn a nickname, but different enough in their bonding with the -20s. 

Finn tried to remember what Nines looked like. They had always been slighter, ill-fitting in their armor but never complaining because to complain was to be Different and to Differ was to be Reconditioned. 

They had been slight and somewhat delicate in their features but for their sharp eyes and sharper teeth. Their eyes had been dark; too dark to tell a colour, and narrow and shrewd. They kept their dark hair cropped short enough that -2187 never knew if it was straight or if it curled. They had a soft mouth, a small mouth, but when Nines spoke, Nines spoke with _fangs_. 

Nines had always said -2187 was the best example of a 'trooper they could ever find, and the compliment had never sat well in his stomach, not ever. He didn't think it was meant to.

His thoughts trailed away as Rey stopped them, staring out at the mountain range that could be seen from the base, her eyes as wide as they had been the first time they had seen Takodana. 

"Are those _mountains_? Real ones? Not ones made of sand?" 

"Pretty sure they're rock, yeah," Finn said, and he grinned, and Rey grinned back and squeezed his hand before tugging him towards the mountains, as if determined to climb their peaks now. 

Finn didn't know how to be a Finn, it was true. But he knew how to be a Finn and Rey, or a Finn and Poe; how to be a Finn and Rey and Poe, and that was pretty good, too.

He'd learn to be a Finn in time.

~+~

She unpacked when Finn was teaching a class of Resistance fighters typical 'trooper squads, their numbers and their methods; when Poe was up in the air with his best and his students, teaching them flight formations and going through simulations and obstacle courses. 

She unpacked her clothes, folding them into the drawers left empty for her; unpacked her small trinkets and belongings and started to set them up on little spaces that she knew were for her, because nothing touched them but they were just big enough for her books. Just big enough for the bits of jewelry that General Organa had given her, and the wooden figures that Skywalker had made for her when teaching her how to whittle to pass the time; meditation too still and fighting katas too noisy. 

She set her bo staff against the wall by the door, her satchel with her leftover rations on the ground next to Finn's kit and Poe's bag; her 'sabre beside the bed, on the table, closest to the door where she knew she would claim her spot because she liked to be able to escape if it became too _much_. 

She then took off her shoes and settled on the bed, legs crossed and eyes closed; palms on her knees, and _breathed_. 

Skywalker was with General Organa, their auras twined together in a show of love and camaraderie that came from living through a war and finding family through horrific losses. Chewie was in the mess hall, alone but not lonely, and the metallic shine of droids stuck close to him, meaning R2-D2 was probably with him, C-3P0 not too far behind, and she needn't worry about the wookie. 

She reached out further, found Finn in his classroom, and his aura was bright white and blinding, a blank slate with gashes through it as if claws had torn through him and he'd soldiered on. He seemed calm, happy - and it was so _good_ to feel that, because she had only known him as panicked and running on adrenaline and she only wanted him to know what it was like to be _calm_. 

Up in the sky, Poe's X-wing twisted in manoeuvres that she longed to see up close, and she was determined to ask him to take her up in the sky one day. Perhaps not in an X-wing, they were one-seaters - but surely the Resistance had others. Finn had said Poe could fly _anything_ \- and she so badly wished to fly with him. 

Poe shone soft and gently, with faded, ripped edges that spoke of old pains that had healed in the best way. A creeping darkness lingered in-and-out, smoky black, and she recognized it as Kylo Ren in her own mind and mourned that the man in the mask had hurt her pilot, too. She wondered if he would let her help, if she could; wondered if Skywalker could teach her how to block out the invasion from other people's minds, and not just her own. 

A series of whirrs, whistles, and beeps broke her concentration, and Rey opened her eyes and stared down at BB-8 as it swayed back and forth in front of her, visual lens staring up at her inquisitively. 

"...I suppose I could eat." 

BB-8 _whirrwhoowhoop_ ed happily, spinning around and rolling away. Scrambling back to her feet and forgoing shoes, Rey followed.

~+~

Poe waved his squadmates off to lunch, grinning at them and taking their teases with good humour while going over the flight reports the airfield droids kept on them, showing how their students were doing and what needed improving. 

It was good to see that most of the slackers had been chased off earlier in the weeks of training, but it was still annoying to see a few had clung on like stubborn blase tree goats - nearly too lazy to let go and let people with actual work ethic take their place. He'd have to figure out a way to get them out; he wouldn't stand for subpar, and these pilots always managed to mess up during training, either during their flight patterns or in the care of their T-70s. Their fighter power was small enough - they literally couldn't _afford_ mistakes. Not even the small ones.

He looked up when he felt eyes on him, halfway expecting General Leia - and instead met the too-wide blue eyes of Luke Skywalker, legend and myth and tired old man. 

Poe blinked, brows raised, before he put down the datapad and made his way over to the Jedi master, last of the Jedi and only brother to General Leia. He had vague memories of a man, younger than this but older than when his legend started, standing with his parents and handing them the cutting of the Force Tree. He'd been small, much too small to understand what was happening; hiding behind his grandfather's leg and watching the man talk to his mother and father with wide eyes. 

He had looked tired, then, too; tired and drained and a little bit sad, like his destiny wasn't what he had been expecting but he'd learned to accept that by now. 

"Shara Bey's son?" Luke Skywalker asked as soon as he was close enough, and Poe paused, watching him carefully, and nodded. The Jedi smiled, looking away from him and out to the fighters all around them; something like longing in his lopsided expression. "Leia always said she was a remarkable flier. I have to agree - she was amazing at what she did. But so was your father. How is he?" 

"Still going strong," Poe said, shoving his hands into his pockets and wondering what this man wanted with him. Poe sometimes forgot General Leia was a legend, because he spent so much time with her; the princess of a destroyed planet, daughter to Lord Vader and sister to Luke and wife to Han Solo all. She was the General to him - competent and sure-footed, with a kind twist of her mouth when she thought you needed it and a heavy load on her shoulders that she bore with grace and dignity. Poe was used to General Leia's presence. He was not used to Luke Skywalker.

"I like Kes. He has a good head on his shoulders - I think he helped keep Shara grounded." 

Poe smiled a little, thinking that that was probably the case. His mom had always called his dad her landing platform; his dad had always called his mom his shooting star. 

It was all pretty romantic, really, and he thought he'd gotten the best of that from them. Luke Skywalker finally looked over at him again, and Poe straightened; wondering for a moment if the Jedi had read his thoughts. 

"Leia speaks highly of you - her most daring pilot. She told me she sent you to find my location, first?" Poe nodded, and he smiled a little, but it was not a very good smile. It felt more like a grimace, and Poe wrinkled his nose a bit. "I'm afraid you have me to blame for most of your problems recently, then." 

"I would blame the First Order, sir. And Kylo Ren. They seem to be the ones who actually did something." 

"I trained Kylo, and then left when he turned against me and killed all my students. My inaction would take some of the blame then, surely?" 

Poe stared at Luke Skywalker before shrugging and rocking back on his heels. 

"Finn waited until after I had been tortured and had my brain ripped apart by Kylo Ren before he dared try to rescue me, even though he had had every chance before that. I was left alone for long periods of time, but he waited. His inaction put me in the position of accidentally revealing my mission and putting BB-8 in danger. But I'm not going to blame him for any of that, because how was he supposed to know?" Poe shook his head, then, grinning a bit, and Luke Skywalker made a curious noise. "No, I'm sorry, it's just - it's weird, right? This is weird." 

"How so?" 

"You're Luke kriffing Skywalker - you're a legend. You defeated the Emperor and Darth Vader, you blew up the Death Star. You did all of these amazing things, and here I am trying to convince you that you can't be blamed for other people's actions? I mean - I did not wake up this morning thinking that was going to happen." 

Luke Skywalker stared at him for a long moment, before he smiled again; and this was a good smile, a nice one, making him look younger and less strained around the eyes, more like the man from his memories who had looked tired and sad but not yet defeated - he bore the galaxy but hadn't let it beat him down then. 

"I'm glad to see Rey was right, too." 

"What?" 

"She said you're a good person, Poe Dameron. And you are." 

~+~

Finn sat across from General Leia Organa, staring at her as she listened to something Admiral Ackbar was muttering to her before nodding and turning back to him. She leaned forward, then, elbows on her knees, and stared at him seriously. 

"We're going to be starting a series of attacks on multiple First Order bases - small ones, more scattered than anything we've done. We want to make it seem like we have more people than we actually do, make the First Order take us as a serious threat even after the heavy losses at Starkiller." 

"I don't know all the locations of the bases, ma'am - only the ones they sent me to for training." 

"I don't need you for the locations, Finn, we have scouts for those, and the information you gave us helped us a lot in finding some of the more secluded bases. What we need is someone to head these attacks." 

"...Poe?" 

General Leia Organa smiled, reaching out and wrapping her worn fingers around Finn's wrist, and Finn once again marvelled that the biggest threat to the First Order had soft, age-worn skin with calluses from a long, hard life and wore delicate things like armor; the branches of her ring pressing against his warm skin, cool and metal and silver twined around green. 

"Poe will be leading many of the fighter attacks, of course - he is my Commander. But I was thinking someone else. Not all the bases have heavy air defence turrets, probably because of their secluded nature and the nature of the bases themselves. Some of these don't hold any significance outside of the fact that they're First Order, and we want to whittle their forces down until they're a little more manageable and we have more fighters on our side." Finn nodded, watching her carefully; a feeling in the back of his mind telling him he knew exactly where this was going. His heart lodging into his throat made it impossible for him to accept what she was building up to saying, though, and he kept quiet. 

"We're sending a couple of ground forces to the bases that _do_ have heavier air support, so that they can't shoot down our fighters and cut us down any slimmer than we're already cut. These teams will be setting up explosives, blowing the compounds sky-high. We want these teams to try and gather as much intel as they can before the press the detonator, though - we have a hacking code set up to be slotted into any terminal and gather what information they can get before they're noticed." 

"They'd be found out very quickly - there are 'troopers trained to spot interference in the data systems to ensure that doesn't happen." 

"The code dumps out garbage data to confuse anyone watching while it collects information. It's only supposed to go for a few minutes. We don't expect large information dumps. We just want a bit of a peek." Finn nodded, still waiting, and General Leia Organa sighed and leaned back. "We'd like you to lead some of the teams." 

"Why?"

"You know the structure of the bases the best - you would know where explosives would be best situated." Finn frowned at her, and General Leia Organa sighed and smiled vaguely. "... We'd also like to slap the Order right in the face." 

"You want to use me as the slap. The 'trooper who defected is now tearing them down." The General nodded, and Finn leaned back and pressed his lips together, staring down at his hands. He curled his fingers into fists; thought about what Rey and Poe and Han would have done. 

He nodded. "I'll do it." 

General Leia Organa smiled, and she looked relieved; as if she thought he would dare say no. 

"Thank you." 

~+~

Rey looked up when a man she did not know sat down across from her in the mess, arching his back and cracking it with a grimace and a sigh. 

He then looked at her, held out his hand, and smiled. "Name's Wedge Antilles." 

Rey blinked, stared at his hand, and slowly - slowly, cautiously, watching his body language to make sure he wasn't going to tug her forward and shiv her in the throat for her belongings - she took his hand and squeezed it carefully. 

"...I'm Rey." 

"I've heard." He continued to smile, letting go of her hand and picking up his fork as though this were a regular occurrence; as if he always sat with Rey and talked to her with a familiarity she did not share. "I'm one of the pilots - a senior one, certainly, but a pilot all the same." 

"... you're the same Wedge who blew up the second Death Star?" Wedge Antilles grinned, and Rey sat back, a little bit stunned. "Skywalker talks about you so often!" 

"Wait - Luke?" Wedge blinked, before his smile widened even more and he leaned forward. "I haven't seen that nerf herder _anywhere_ \- I think he's been avoiding me. And everyone, but that's pretty obvious. He actually talks about me?" Rey nodded, and Wedge Antilles grinned. "Do me a favour, Rey, would you? Tell me about how he's been?" 

Rey stared at him for a moment, biting the corner of her lip; but Wedge Antilles had an open, honest face, and she knew from Skywalker's stories that he was a good man and an ace pilot and she admired him a little bit just from what she had heard about him. So she smiled shyly, nodded, and started to tell him anything she could think of. 

They spent the entire lunch talking, eventually moving away from Skywalker and onto themselves. Rey paused long enough to shove food into her mouth once in a while, and Wedge Antilles pretended not to notice the half-starved way she grabbed at her meal; discreetly pushing more onto her plate and prodding her with questions when she took a moment to breathe. 

When Rey finally noticed that most people were leaving the mess, heading back to their responsibilities, she turned to see Wedge Antilles smiling at her and watching her with an expression she didn't know how to read. Sometimes General Leia looked at her like that. Like she was someone to be fond of; to be proud to know, even a little bit.

"You remind me a lot of Luke." 

Rey blinked, eyes widening and mouth dropping open. 

"I _do_?" 

"Yeah - he was amazed by everything he saw in the world, too. Never did get over _snow_ , of all things. Guess you desert kids have got to stick together, right?" Wedge Antilles grinned again, that same easy grin he had first greeted her with, and stood up, picking up his tray. "I'm gonna go see how the new pilots are doing on the Porkins Belly Run - would you like to join me?" 

Still looking at him wide-eyed, Rey nodded quickly and clambered to her feet, hurrying after him out of the mess. 

~+~

"Statson, do you take your place here in the Resistance seriously?" 

"Yes, Commander!" 

Poe frowned a little, staring up at the taller man with a disbelieving expression. The doors to the hangar bay opened, and he turned to see Major Wedge Antilles walking in, followed closely by Rey. He turned to them curiously, the rest of the pilots turning with him; Jess smacked Snap on the shoulder, and Snap looked over and raised his eyebrows to see who was coming in. 

"Major Antilles!" Poe greeted once he was close enough, and he and the pilots of Red and Blue squadrons came to attention and saluted him. Major Antilles nodded, and Poe relaxed while the others stood at ease. "What can we do for you today?" 

"I want to see how the training's going - you've gone through the Porkins Belly Run with them, right?" 

"Yes, sir," Poe said, grimacing a little. "If you'd like the results--?" 

"Certainly - but I'd also like to see them, if that's alright? Sometimes a pilot has a bad day. I know I was terrible at these sorts of things when I was a regular pilot. Pretty sure I bombed a simulation in under ten seconds." Everyone around him laughed a little, some more nervously than others, and Poe grinned at him comfortably. "Shall we?"

"Certainly," Poe said, seeing this for the opportunity it was. He turned to the recruits filed in front of him, and they snapped back to attention. "Statson, you first." 

The man he had been talking to earlier shot him a vaguely terrified look, and Poe grinned and crossed his arms over his chest. The recruit gave a deflated little sigh and moved towards the T-70 he had been assigned when they first started training. The others moved back, Major Antilles, Rey and Poe moving to the droid that kept a statistical eye on the X-wings while they were practicing; collecting data and marking areas in need of improvement. 

While Major Antilles leaned forward to watch the numbers start cranking out, showing the time it took Statson to go through pre-flight checks and whether he did it in the right order, Poe looked over to see Rey watching everything around her in interest. 

"Want to take a spin after this, Rey?" 

Rey turned to him, smiling a little. 

"Can we?" 

"'Course, love," Poe said, grinning and reaching out to briefly squeeze her arm. "I've been wanting to see you fly something in peak condition, anyway." 

"The _Falcon_ has character." 

"It's got _something_." 

"Dameron," Major Wedge interrupted, looking at Poe with raised brows, "is this really one of _your_ recruits? I'm embarrassed for you." Poe sighed dramatically.

"Tell me about it, sir." 

~+~

Rey and Poe came into the room together, laughing with their arms wrapped around each other, and Finn thought to himself that he was very lucky to know both of them. 

Poe was still in his flight suit, almost always in his flight suit, the top part hanging down and arms tied around his waist, the grey shirt he wore underneath sweat stained and grease stained. Rey's arm wraps were flecked with oil, and her hair was frizzy and falling out of the loose bun she had tied it back in. BB-8 followed after them, beeping and whistling, circling around them as if making sure they wouldn't fall. 

When they spotted him sitting on the bed, Rey grinned and broke away, climbing up next to him and leaning in to him. She pressed her forehead to his temple and he pressed back, their fingers tangling together on his lap. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and he blinked and pulled back to stare at her. 

"I went flying with Poe, Finn - it was _amazing_ , I wish you could have been there!" 

"We'll have to take him next time - Finn's one hell of a gunner." 

"He is!" 

Finn smiled a little, watching them go back and forth and content, for just a moment, to listen. His mind was crowded with too many thoughts, and he didn't want to just blurt out the first thing he could think to say. He did that a lot - most often it was all he did. Adrenaline and panic didn't make for good decision making, and he often felt both too often for comfort. But with Rey and Poe, he could try and settle; say something that he had actually thought through. 

"Oh, and I met Wedge Antilles!" 

"The pilot from Rogue Squadron?" Finn asked, eyebrows raised. Rey nodded, smile widening, and Poe grinned a little. 

"I always forget how much military history you know." 

"It was the only history I learned," Finn said with a shrug. Rey and Poe paused, the air around them shifting uncomfortably, before Rey leaned a little more against him and Poe reached out to clasp their hands with his, as well; pale and dusty and dark mixed together in a tangle of fingers and thumbs. 

"What did you do today, anyway?" Poe asked, resting his chin on Finn's shoulder. Rey watched him curiously, and Finn licked his lips and shrugged a little, jostling both. "Awh, c'mon buddy - I haven't seen you all day. Statura said you were with the General all day." 

"I was, yeah," Finn nodded, looking down at their hands and comparing calluses and scars. "She was telling me about some plans to start taking out First Order bases." 

"Oh, yeah - that's happening in a couple of weeks, once the pilots who survived training are all done and ready for actual combat." Poe toed off his boots, bringing his feet up on the bed so he could throw a leg over Finn's lap, foot tapping against Rey's hip. "She asking for some more information on the bases?" 

"No, she has all the information she needs," Finn shook his head, still staring down at their hands. "She asked me to lead one of the ground forces." 

Neither of them spoke for a moment, and Finn closed his eyes and didn't try to interpret the silence.

"...Did you want to do that?" Rey finally asked, and he looked over at her and saw only concern on her face. It was so different from the confusion she had often greeted anything he had to say during their run from the Order, before she had found Skywalker and become something wonderful, and he liked that it was different because it meant Rey was different, and Finn had learned that being different was better than being uniformed. "Because I know how you feel about going back to anything to do with the Order, and I'm sure General Leia wouldn't mind if you said no, you know--" 

"--and the General, she's good about not forcing anyone. If she thought she was forcing you, she'd back off." 

But Finn shook his head, even as that warm feeling that told him he was human settled around his heart, and he knew it was _love_ \- it was love and it was the best thing in the world and he loved these two _so much_ he could probably actually explode from it. 

"I want to do it," he said, then, and squeezed their hands as best as he could; they squeezed back, and Poe's arm wrapped around his shoulders, Rey's twining around his waist. "...I think I need to do it, really. I don't want to be afraid anymore." 

Rey kissed the corner of his mouth again, and Poe pressed his lips to Finn's shoulder, and Finn smiled and glanced over to see BB-8 watching them and swaying contentedly back-and-forth beside the bed. He wondered if the little droid would print a picture off of this moment for Finn, if he asked really nicely. 

"I refuse to be afraid anymore." 

~+~

Rey climbed out of their bed, passed BB-8 plugged into its charging station beside Poe's desk, and out into the dimly-lit hallway. 

It was quiet, save for the soft sounds of people sleeping and the rare sounds of people pacing their rooms, or those just getting off their shift and making their way back to their bunks. Rey knew that Poe had set them up with the other pilots; knew that they were closest to the hangar, in case they ever needed to roll out of bed and into their fighters in a rush. 

The smell of jet fuel and oil was comforting in its familiarity, even if it was stronger than it had ever been in the AT-AT. She made her way to the hangar bay, climbing up a set of metal stairs to the walkway above the fighters, and settled along the edge, legs hanging off of the side. She stared down at _Black One_ from where she sat above it, gripping onto the metal railing with tight fingers. 

After a moment, Skywalker sat next to her, folding his legs and pushing out his robes so they didn't tangle with his limbs. Mentor and student sat in a comfortable silence until Rey turned to Skywalker and frowned. 

"Why were we asked to come back?" 

"Leia's starting attacks on the Order, as I'm sure you've heard." Rey nodded, and Skywalker sighed. "She wants us close in case they ever spot Kylo Ren. It's easier for us to be here instead of back at the Temple - they don't have to wait for us to come, we can just go after him as soon as we have word of him." 

"Are we staying on the base?" 

"Yes. If we need quiet, we can go into the jungles surrounding the base. It will also be good to have people get used to seeing you. You'll be playing an important part in upcoming missions, and in the war as a whole. I don't want you to become a legend nearly no one thinks is real. I want people to remember that you really exist." 

She stared at Skywalker for a moment, thinking about what Wedge Antilles had said about desert kids sticking together, and nodded with a little smile. 

"Alright. I've missed being close to my friends." 

Skywalker smiled back at her, more Luke than anything else, and looked back out to the fighters. 

"Me, too."

**Author's Note:**

> Poe Dameron is a demisexual biromantic.  
> Rey is a greysexual panromantic.  
> Finn is an asexual panromantic. 
> 
> Luke is a bisexual aromantic.


End file.
